Talk:Recurrent laryngeal nerve

Veterinary Medicine
Under "Veterinary Medicine" - "In Veterinary medicine, 'roars' refers to a deficit in the left recurrent laryngeal nerve causing characteristic stenuous sounds upon inspiration."

The word "stenuous" is the wrong word. Horses make "stertorous" (snoring) sounds when working hard if they have this deficit - or they make the "roaring" sound when doing "strenuous" exercise...but which? Paulburnett (talk) 16:19, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Under "Path" - "It is referred to as "recurrent" because the branches of the nerve innervate the laryngeal muscles in the neck through a rather circuitous route: they descend into the thorax before rising up between the trachea and esophagus to reach the neck."

The reason for this circuitous route is to do with evolution - the nerve originated from the nerve used to control gills in fish. Cameronmccloud (talk) 15:39, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I removed "However, the existence of fibres innervating other structures such as the Cardiac plexus along its length gives reason other than purely an evolutionary blunder for the seemingly nonsensical route." - because this is not a logical argument or statement of fact. That is, the innervating fibres are located in such a way as to enhance the argument for evolution - while this quote purports to assert the opposite. If it is meant to convey anything other than a contra-evolution position, it needs a serious re-write. To be clear - as an argument against evolution it is nonsense. As support for evolution it is written in a horrific fashion. Riluve (talk) 17:27, 27 December 2010 (UTC)

I think by viewing mammals as "one size fits all" one may discover the answer for the beauty of this design, for if the laryngeal nerve went straight to the larynx the Lion would not be able to pull it's larynx into it's chest cavity in order to roar.Johncart2 (talk) 20:23, 12 February 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems to me very unelegant, and thus not "beautiful", to endow all the many tens of thousands of living and extinct species descended from the common ancestral fish in question with an unnecessarily circuitous nerve just to allow one of them to have a mobile larynx, something that could presumably have been achieved by other means. Perhaps idiosyncratic human notions of beauty are not the best criteria for judging biological structures. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.201.110.36 (talk) 10:09, 9 June 2011 (UTC)
 * What i think the article would benefit from more than arguments over subjective stuff would be inclusion of a more objective inclusion along the lines of "Assuming no function for the seeming detour of the recurrent laryngeal nerve the current belief within evolutionary science is that...." Surely evolutionists could accept that if there was some function found then it would produce a modification to the theory. Evolutionary though is always changing to best fit the facts presented, yet this is not accounted for in the direct claims the article makes. Wuku (talk) 21:50, 13 June 2011 (UTC)

Well the Lion is pretty high up the food chain, not that makes it more important than any other species, though I do find it a very beautiful animal, for many reasons including it's elegance - while I know my thoughts are subjective the view of God's design being inelegant rather than beautiful is also. This is in no way meant to be a argument just another point of view to consider in the definitive scientific explanation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johncart2 (talk • contribs) 08:12, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

I really don't understand why the evolution section is included. While the discussion about the different path of the nerve in different species is factual and potentially useful information, terms like "extreme detour" and "wrong side of the heart" reek of opinion, the link to evolution is speculative, and the assertion that this disproves intelligent design is scientifically unsound. Furthermore, how does a popular book by Dr. Dawkins qualify as a valid citation? Is there no peer-reviewed scientific article that supports these claims? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.192.32.160 (talk) 05:20, 4 April 2012 (UTC)

These terms are not speculative, as mentioned above, the reason for this circuitous route is to do with evolution - the nerve originated from the nerve used to control gills in fish. Dr. Dawkins is an academically published evolutionary biologist, this component is mainstream evolutionary science.(talk) 05:20, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

ICS related references
I saw reference to this article at WP:RSN, and as I posted over there, do not believe the ICS references to qualify as MEDRS. Discuss here please. -- [ UseTheCommandLine  ~/ talk  ]# &#9604; 10:31, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
 * The ICR article is certainly not WP:MEDRS and the references cited in the article seem to be cherry-picked to support a fringe. Ochiwar (talk) 11:35, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
 * Agreed. The synthesis apparent in the removed text was also inappropriate for an encyclopedia. -- Scray (talk) 13:51, 11 August 2013 (UTC)


 * Its a cherry picked fringe claim. Per WP:ONEWAY we only mention fringe theories and their claims if there has been a substantial connection of them to the topic in the reliable sources. There is no such substantial connection. IRWolfie- (talk) 22:01, 11 August 2013 (UTC)